The CRS is a Congressional "think tank" with a staff of around 700. Reports are commissioned by members of Congress on topics relevant to current political events. Despite CRS costs to the tax payer of over $100M a year, its electronic archives are, as a matter of policy, not made available to the public.

Individual members of Congress will release specific CRS reports if they believe it to assist them politically, but CRS archives as a whole are firewalled from public access.

This report was obtained by Wikileaks staff from CRS computers accessible only from Congressional offices.

While the President is required to submit annually a comprehensive federal budget to Congress, each federal agency bears the primary responsibility for justifying its budget request to gain approval from Congress. This fact sheet focuses on the justification of requests for spending provided through the annual appropriations process.